Dimensional Warriors: Shadow's Story
by Pahhur
Summary: Join a cast of familiar and unfamiliar characters as they deal with an apocalyptic situation.  Includes characters from Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, InuYasha, Ranma 1/2, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and Sonic.  Check out more at:
1. Chapter 1

This chapter contains material that I do not own, they are the property of one of the following: Akira Toriyama, Yoshihiro Togashi, Rumiko Takahashi, Tite Kubo, Masashi Kishimoto, Eiichiro Oda, and Yuji Naka. Please support these excellent artists.

BRRRRMMMMMMM!

Alarms; something was happening on the planet. I woke up to the sound; it wasn't uncommon. Usually just Eggman up to something, or one of his lackeys. Usually Sonic would take care of it; usually I wasn't needed. I sped to the console regardless. I needed to double check, make sure I kept my promise to Maria. The computer flipped on, running a diagnostic of the space base Ark first. It was a safety procedure. I watched, thinking how this was my birthplace, my home.

Then the computer switched to the planet below. Mobius, Earth as the humans call it. My job, I guess my choice. Was to protect it. The screen zoomed in on one point, expanding it. It looked like a bomb of some sort. There was a figure hunched over it, wearing a black suit and hat. Then he turned, his face pasty white, and smiled. The look in his eyes, hunger. It was the only way to describe it. He knew I was watching him. How. This was a satellite camera, he couldn't know.

I shook the thought from my head, realizing in the moment I had taken to think he had vanished. The bomb was not Eggman's design. I could glean that much from here. He plastered his face on everything, this didn't carry his mark. I realized I was the only one who would know that it was there. The energy radiating off the device was immense, if it blew it would easily take the entire planet with it.

Determined I ran straight for the teleport. It would take me almost right to the bomb's location. In the meantime I had to figure out what I could do to stop it. If I could get Nicole or Rotor there soon enough, maybe they could stop it. But the thing was set to go in a matter of minutes. Even at top speed I'd only have a minute to figure out what to do. Maybe just destroy it? No, that'd just detonate it soon. I might be able to teleport back with it. I skidded to a stop at the teleporter, keying in the computer so that it would pick me back up, with the bomb. I also had the Ark start moving further away from the planet. It would be close.

On the surface I moved rapidly through the dense forest I had been dropped in. There. I stopped perfectly. There was a minute left on the counter. I reached down to pick it up, and prepared the teleporter. But the moment I touched it it beeped twice and exploded...

...I didn't expect to wake up; but I did. I was still in a forest. It was different than the one I had been in before though. Less foliage on the ground, the trees had higher branches. I guessed first that I had been thrown by the explosion, but if it had detonated the planet shouldn't still be standing. Yet there wasn't even scorch marks.

I looked around, it didn't look like any place I had been; so I used my wristwatch to try and communicate with the Ark. There was no signal. I heard a sound coming from behind me. There were a couple of men in black armor approaching me slowly. Odd, but I didn't have time to question. As soon as they were in range they lowered guns and began firing. Reflexively I ducked the bullets, and cut through the armor with my spines, figuring I could scare them away. The armor came apart and fell lifeless to the forest floor. No one was inside. I picked up a piece, the metal wasn't something I recognized. Touching it reminded me of that man I had seen; like this was a part of him.

There were a lot of questions running through my mind, and no answers. The planet had been under attack by many foes before, but none of them added up to what I was facing here. I ran as I thought. Whatever put that bomb on the planet was new. Why didn't the planet explode? I skidded to a stop as something passed the corner of my eye. Two more of those armored creatures were approaching a sleeping girl. Her messy auburn hair hung in her face. Within a second I had cleaved both in half and grabbed the girl. She was in strange garb, a flowery robe of some sort; I'd have to find a safe place to wake her.

I skidded to a stop as a familiar, and grotesque image passed overhead. Ruins, it looked like a part of the Master Emerald shrine. It was just a chunk of the whole, the main shrine was not here, but I soon recognized the rest of the Floating Island, which was hard because it looked like the Island had crashed on its side and almost flipped entirely over. I could see the tip of the largest mountain reduced to rubble as it smashed cruelly against the planet's surface.

I set the girl down and moved to get a better look. After climbing to the highest piece I could see chunks of the Echidna City strewn out on all sides. The main streets and center parts I could only guess were deep under this rock now. Obviously the bomb was not made to destroy, but perhaps instead relocate. Possibly something similar to my own Chaos Control teleport technique. Then I spotted something else of interest.

Right where the shrine was cut, there was an odd purple line. Beneath it, the earth looked like it had been cut clean. In fact it was almost perfectly smooth. Now the big question in my mind was who could have done this? No one came to mind out of the many villains that had threatened our world before. Not even Eggman has the level of power required to teleport an entire planet. Then I heard something.

I moved rapidly to conceal myself and watch the sleeping girl. A man emerged from the woods. He looked unlike the humans of Station Square. He was regal, his skin was as pale as fresh snow; almost to emphasize that he wore a white robe, and a flowing poofy white band over his shoulder. What struck me was when he moved to the girl and seemed to reach out to her. His yellow eyes took on a strange expression his clawed hand moved gracefully. My first instinct was this person was bad news.

"If you value your life, stop right there!" I called out, moving from my hiding place. He seemed unsurprised as he looked at me. Then he returned to what he was doing. I kicked into high speed as well as my spin dash, if he hadn't moved his arm as quickly as he did, he would be missing it.

Now in between the two, I stood my ground.

"Don't get in my way." He said, quietly, but with a force of emotion behind those words; like venom waiting to come out. He pulled his band back and rested his hand on the hilt of a sword. I didn't feel comfortable fighting while having the girl directly behind me, so I moved in, hoping to stop him before he drew his weapon.

Fortunately for me, the blade was stopped on the rings I wear around my wrists. However, the force and speed with which he struck nearly knocked me off my feet. I dug in and held my ground; electricity seemed to spark off the blade, but now I knew this was a powerful opponent and I was not about to get cut.

After a few seconds of struggling in deadlock we broke apart, immediately I began moving. I took advantage of my superior speed, moving rapidly out of the way of his cautious attacks. He was toying with me. Once again I shifted gears and almost instantaneously got behind him and threw a punch. The space between my fingers flared with pain as his blade blocked my strike. However in that instant I spun in and landed a kick right across his smug face.

Once again we put some distance between us. I looked at my hand, it felt like the cut was still opening; like electricity was trying to pour into the rest of my body. Fortunately I was hardy, and my skin was tough. There was a little bit of blood, but the blow hadn't been deep enough. I looked over at him, he was smiling. He now had his blade in an openly aggressive stance. Even though he was now closer to the girl, he showed no intention of abandoning this fight.

"Sesshoumaru-sama..." A delicate, frail voice on the winds. The girl was stirring. Immediately the man I had been fighting was by her side; his weapon sheathed. I moved cautiously now, watching him closely.

The girls eyes fluttered open, and she simply smiled up at the man over her.

"Sesshoumaru!" She yelled out, pulling herself close to him. He held her there for a moment before picking her up and returning her to her feet.

"I'm sorry." I said, realizing now that I had made a mistake. "I was just trying to keep her safe." Then I felt arms wrap around me. The girl had come over to hug me. I just froze.

"Thank you." She said softly, then bounced over to Sesshoumaru; who had an unreadable look on his face.

"Thank you for keeping her safe. To show my respect I won't kill you." That pompous. I was shaken from my stupor by those arrogant words.

"I'd like to see if you could." I almost wanted him to pick up the fight again now; but he seemed disinterested.

"If I were you, I'd find somewhere to hide. Come Rin." He said, before turning and heading back into the forests. I decided it wasn't worth following them and moved on in search of my own clues.

My instincts told me to head towards what I assumed to be north. As fast as I live, I cannot distrust my instincts. As I sped along I came across a terrain change that had me stop in my tracks. I moved from the very healthy forest into a desolate desert.

I turned and reexamined the space. A thin purple line, again. I dug my hands into the sand on one side, reaching for the other. I quickly hit soil. I dug a bit on both sides, I tried to dig out the line, no matter what I did the line shifted with the outermost lair. If I poured sand on top the line shifted to the top part as rapidly as I placed it. It was like an ugly wound, that no matter what a person does will still show.

I looked around, and realized the impossibility of the terrain. The desert, was no more than five meters around. I could see the forest in all directions. Like the two were trying to overlap each other, and the forest won.

Deciding I would need tools to analyze this further I began leaving. No sooner had I moved back into the forest, than I felt the ground quake. The lines behind me shone brighter, and the forested area shifted inwards, consuming the desert until not even the lines were left. I shook my head, there was nothing I could do now, I needed equipment before I could figure out what had happened.

I once again returned to my path, weaving between the trees; I wondered how there were so many. Considering the planet's state before the explosion. Yes we had been gradually regrowing, but much of the planet's surface was still covered in waste.

I paused my pondering for a moment as I passed someone. He was watching me carefully from halfway up a tree. He was a short man, with black hair spiked up to the sky and a white bandanna around his forehead. He wore a black cloak, under which I could just make out the hilt of a sword.

"It's not safe around here!" I called up to him. He smirked.

"That is not my concern." He seemed to be looking elsewhere. After a moment he looked down at me. "Have you seen a young girl, she has light blue, almost white hair and usually wears a white robe?" He seemed a mixture of annoyed and angry.

"No, I did find a few people back that way. One of them was incredibly strong. But I will keep an eye out." He smirked back at me, then vanished. Come to think of it, we never had this many strong, or strange people on our planet either, most humans had been fairly frail, relying on guns to make up for their weak frames. The best example of which was of course Eggman. I had yet to have seen an efficiently strong human who relied on at most a blade. Yet in about a day I have seen two. I continued my musings until I stumbled upon a new patch of desert.

"Okay." I told myself, watching it closely, the lines had lit up only a few seconds ago. "This is going to be stupid, but I'm not figuring anything out just standing here watching." Working up the nerve, I moved onto the sand and waited for the lines to reach me. There was a flash of light, and I was standing unsurprisingly in a desert.

It proved a couple of theories. Somehow, something was moving entire pieces of the planet, like it was some sort of jigsaw puzzle. Anything caught in the movement, moved too. As I looked around I noticed the sand was not a uniform color. There were multiple shades, from the typical golden brown, to a reddish hue. There was even an eery white sand, of which I had never seen on Mobius. This brought a new conclusion to mind, there was more than one planet being used. Which would explain the size. Normally I could circumvent the planet in a few hours going at top speed. It had been almost a day, and I felt I hadn't seen a fraction of the whole.

I was about to move on, when I felt something familiar. A few short moments away, I found a red gem shining out of the sand. One of the Chaos Emeralds. I picked up the stone, feeling it's power flow into me. With just one Chaos Emerald I could unlock a large part of my own powers. Most importantly the Chaos Control, something that would allow me to warp across large distances. I thought for a moment, then activated the Emerald's power.

Mountain, Ocean, Plains, Desert, Forest. My body flickered through each of these terrains as I semi-warped myself around the planet. One fact remained constant. Each terrain type seemed to be gathered, almost sorted, into a particular place. The only inconsistency occurred in civilization. Entire ruined structures lay almost at random across the globe. Then by chance I flickered on top of a structure. I stopped.

The machinery below me was active. This was alive, but with what? I edged my way to one side, spying those Armored creatures gathered below me. Almost as soon as I did, they began scrambling. Some rushing towards the forest's edge, others trying to take aim at me. I couldn't help but grin.

Before they had even steadied their guns, I was on the ground behind them. I had felt my spines run right through four layers, they were done.

"Chidori!" I heard someone call out from the forests. Several armored creatures flew out in pieces as a young man followed slowly behind them. He wore a deep blue overcoat with a high collar, his short black hair seemed to have the habit of sticking straight up, but most striking was his eyes. Blood red, with three black dots inside. He caught my gaze, and considered me for a moment.

"I assume you are not with these things?" I shook my head. "Good, then stay out of my way." He shifted rapidly to where he was behind me. I almost didn't see the movement. After a moment I decided to follow him.

Just inside the building was a walkway leading down, on the lower floor I could make out creatures, different than the armored ones. These things were obviously made of flesh, but most of them had very inhuman shapes. Many of them seemed grotesque or bloated. The man next to me didn't hesitate. He drew out a blade and dashed down. The creatures moved to attack, but he cut into the mass. I decided to dash down as well, cutting my own path through the creatures.

Within a matter of seconds the monstrosities were either dead or fleeing. I quickly took in the monitors lining the room, and spotted a large switch on a panel in the center. The console lit up, and quickly generated a large map


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter contains material that I do not own, they are the property of one of the following: Akira Toriyama, Yoshihiro Togashi, Rumiko Takahashi, Tite Kubo, Masashi Kishimoto, Eiichiro Oda, and Yuji Naka. Please support these excellent artists.

I took in the image of the planet for a moment; oblivious to the young man that had come with me. I swiftly began running my eyes over the control panel. Thankfully the Ark I had lived on for so long had been complex to operate. As it stood there were still a few devices that looked alien to me. But my eyes landed on the scan controls.

With a little work, the console came to life and began spewing out the numbers I had asked for. However the first number out, the one I was most interested in, was impossible. The diameter of the planet was easily over 100,000 km. This planet was several times larger than even the largest planet. I began to work furiously on the console. The hologram above shimmered and zoomed out. According to the readings, there were no suns orbiting the planet. How was that possible? In fact, how do we have a fairly regular twenty-four hour day?

I plugged away, inputting commands, and getting gibberish. Finally the hologram shifted, and the planet separated into layers. Looking at it, the core was about what I'd expect, but surrounding it was a series of deep tunnels dug underneath what seemed to be an entire layer composed of buildings. Then a thin layer of various minerals, followed by the planet's surface. Finally, floating roughly in the upper atmosphere, was some form of casing, which ran lights around the planet to simulate the sun.

My mind was reeling. The level of work, of craftsmanship. The knowledge and technology required, was far beyond anything I had seen. The planet itself seemed to be supported by small dimensional pockets which could be shifted around. As soon as that thought crossed my mind I glanced over the console again. There had been one panel I hadn't understood; I looked it over now.

With a little fiddling the image changed to a zoomed in view. There was a cursor as well. I tested the controls and managed to select a piece of desert. Continuing to test the panel I tried to move it to replace an area adjacent to the forests. The machine displayed a loading bar, and after about five minutes the two areas swapped places.

After an hour or so, I figured out most of the controls, but this console had some locks applied to it. Only a few terrain types could be moved at all. I changed the view to the large map. There were seven buildings that were not in disrepair. I assumed each of them was a base like this one. Six made a form of ring around the planet, while the seventh, a tall tower with almost a city structure around it, rested at what would be the south pole. I felt it was a safe bet to assume whoever was doing all this would be there.

Gripping the Chaos Emerald in my pouch, I knew I couldn't warp all the way there, but I could at least put some distance between myself and this place.

I had managed to warp to the forest's edge and now was making breakneck speed across open, tilled fields. No crops were growing, and the entire area was a hodgepodge of open dirt and thick fields of wild grass. There were many times I would have to spin, just to make a path through the overgrown golden stalks.

Days passed according to the artificial lights above; and the fields showed no signs of stopping. I warped every few hours, but with no solid knowledge of what was ahead, I couldn't make as large of a jump as I had earlier. Fortunately, not all of the crops in the area were dead. I managed to find more than enough to keep myself alive; but the further I went the colder it got.

Soon I was running across permafrost, fortunately I had stashed several supplies I had found, as the next few days were hellish. Though much sooner, I came to the edge of a cliff. Below lay a paradise. The light above seemed to be permanently on, the ground was a crisp green, perfectly cut in a circle around a high walled city. Looming at the center was a tower, climbing piercingly high. Even from here I could see a mass of black specks moving throughout the city below. I carefully laid on the ground, trying to get a good grasp of the layout.

As I watched, an explosion flared up from one corner of the city. The entire area went into alarm, troops were moving erratically. I had no idea how it happened, but I saw my chance. Deftly I warped into the city.

The streets were bare where I landed, I had hoped as much since I tried to aim as far from the explosion as I could. The street looked like it was built wide, to accommodate large vehicles. Along the sides seemed to be warehouses; lined closely together, like housing. I started moving across the gray city, towards the tower that reached high into the air.

I tried to keep myself hidden as I moved, on occasion I would come across an Armor; they sometimes spotted me, I silenced them instantaneously.

I came to a halt at the base of the tower, I could hear voices. Particularly a single booming one.

"How could you let intruders in here! You are all useless, this is why you will never ascend!" I peeked around the corner. There were a group of Armors, following what looked like it could have been another Armor once. However large pieces of metal were missing, in fact I had a hard time telling what was holding it together; as the boots seemed completely separate from the base of the spine, which was a small strip of metal, climbing up a few feet in height. Even the head was only a small chunk with eye-holes; it didn't even have a complete mouth. One either side of it were more creatures that looked like Armors, but were very different. These seemed to be made of silver, as their coloration set them apart from the crowd. They also had blades attached to their arms, were thinned down, and in almost all of the most important joints there was no metal.

I pressed back against the wall as what seemed like the leader began again.

"Now I want you lot to go find this second intruder, the Atlas says he should be right around here. I am going to go silence the noisy one. Guards." He turned to his silver companions. "Bring me some of the converted demons. At the very least they could prove to be useful shields." The other Armors began scurrying to their task, I realized I was in a lot more danger; but I still had my Chaos Emerald. Before they could leave the room I had warped up a couple of floors.

Again the area was empty. I had to thank whoever started the ruckus outside, the whole base seemed to be under lock down. I began searching the rooms as I went. Mostly I found computers, and some Armors. Most of them I either took down, or avoided. But as I climbed I came across something interesting.

There was a display case in one of the rooms, I slipped in to get a better look. In the center of the room was a white pedestal, under the glass in the center lay a mass of black. Smoke seemed to ooze steadily off of it. The thing was radiating power as it lay there. I put my hand on the pedestal while I looked closer, and felt something familiar. There was a slot etched into the machinery. I recognized the shape immediately; Eggman used it all the time in any machine he wanted to use the Chaos Emeralds to power. As if on cue I heard the door open behind me.

Blessing my speed, I managed to push myself into the ceiling as a large familiar man entered the room, two Armors on either side.

"Eggman." I hissed under my breath. I could tell by his bald, pointed head, his large gut coated in his trademark red and black garb, his absurdly large red mustache that jutted a good foot out either side of his face. I pressed closer into the ceiling, hoping to get a chance to hear his plans.

"I am grateful" He said turning around to see his two guards, "that your master has seen fit to put me in charge here. However, because of that I am very busy. Why did you bring me here?" They held out two objects, one I didn't recognize, but the other was a Chaos Emerald.

"These came into our possession."

"Oho! A Chaos Emerald, now this is a perfect use of my time." He moved to pick up the emerald, but was halted. Both the orb and the Emerald were vibrating on their own, and drawing closer to each other; before long they flew out of the hands holding them, and collided.

As soon as the two objects came together, a bright light enveloped the room. I felt raw power burst from the unison. When it subsided the orb was gone, and the Emerald was larger, looking like a crystal. Inside I could just see three green stars, offsetting the bright yellow stone. The power it was emitting was so different than a normal Chaos Emerald. I estimated it was radiating the same force as all seven combined; yet even then it was different. Like it was free. Normally the Emeralds only respond to certain machines or people, like me or Sonic. This felt unbound, like anyone could pick it up and use it. I was taken out of my thoughts by Eggman's laughter.

"This is incredible. Go get the other seven, these Crystals will definitely wake up my greatest creation!" He held the crystal carefully, as if touching it burned him. The Armors left and I made my move.

In a flash I had grabbed the Crystal, raw power waiting to be accepted.

"Shadow! How can you still be alive!"

"You're lucky for now Eggman, I'll just be taking this; see you." I gripped the glowing stone and allowed the energy to flow into me. I felt my fur stand on end. "Chaos Control!" In a second I was outside the city limits. But Eggman's voice blasted out of the speakers.

"Find him! Get me those Chaos Crystals! Release the Eggbots! Release the Demons! Release the Beasts!" I was about to warp again when a prone form landed a few feet away. He was short by human standards, though his black hair tried to make up for that. He was extremely muscular, and was wearing a blue wife beater and matching sweats. All of which was torn in several places. He coughed suddenly, sending a little spurt of blood up. He pulled himself up, looking around rapidly. His eyes looked over me.

"Super... Saiyan?" Then he managed to focus. "No... What are you?" He began getting up, but blood was pouring out of his backside. I moved to help him, but a black creature landed nearby. It had the same armor type as the Solarus, but this one was sleek. It's face glowed with an eerie red light.

"Still alive?" It spoke, confident, calm. "I guess you weren't an absolute waste of flesh then. Shame, I would have rather liked to see what kind of General you would make. But I guess all that is left is to kill you." Energy began building up along its finger. I didn't wait any longer, and grabbed the man's arm; warping the both of us a few feet away.

Or at least I thought I had, the Armored man was no further away than he had been. I took off on foot, he lifted himself into the air, and kept pace with me.

"We, have to get out of here. He's strong. Too strong." The man I was carrying finally began speaking.

"Right, hold on." Anything that could keep up with me in my Super form was to be feared; especially when it looked so calm doing it. "Chaos Control!" I tried to move as far away as I could, place myself on the opposite side of the planet.


	3. Chapter 3

I ground to a halt, I was back in the woods, the climate was warmer too. What was more, just ahead was a mountain plated in diamond. I hefted the unconscious man up a bit and walked up to it. There was no way this was a natural structure. I made a very precise warp and found myself inside a long tunnel. There were a couple of people around, who just stared at me. One ran off quickly and the other moved towards me.

"Kuonji, Ukyo." She said, holding her hand out. She was tall for a human female, her hair fell to about her waist and she was wearing a short cut blue robe. Most notably though was the enormous spatula strapped to her backside. "Let me help you with that." She said, hefting the unconscious man onto her shoulders. "The first aid stations are this way." A little baffled, I followed her.

"Vegeta!" One of women helping out was quite audible when we arrived. She had short blue hair, and was wearing a lab coat. "What happened to him?" She looked from Ukyo down to me. "It was you wasn't it?"

"Bulma please."

"You little furballs are all over the place."

"Bulma he was carrying Vegeta in when I found him." She shot me a nasty look, then turned away quietly. I could feel a bad atmosphere filling the room and backed out.

"So you finally made it?" I heard a familiar cocky voice. Behind me was what I always considered to be nature's irony. Sonic the Hedgehog. I had been built to use the Chaos Emerald's power, he was born to; and it always bothered me. Then again he always bothered me regardless.

"I was busy."

"You always are. What'd you find out?"

"Eggman's alive, and holding some sort of sway over this whole ordeal."

"I didn't think Eggman had the tools to do something like this." I heard a smaller voice pipe up from behind Sonic. His constant companion, a yellow furred fox with two tails named oddly enough Tails.

"I don't think he did. It sounded like he was working for someone else. But I think he knows we're alive now and has a new batch of bots for us."

"For the best then, I'm getting tired of cutting through hollow steel." Sonic said. "Which reminds me, I'm on the next scouting group. See you."

"Let's go get you a room then." Tails said, grabbing me by the arm.

"I'd rather not stay." I took my arm back.

"It's a war zone out there, no one is allowed to leave unless its to scout for food and survivors. We have a lot of innocent people here and we need all the strength we can get." I sighed.

"Fine, then I would talk to your technical crew, I found some information they might find interesting." I pulled out a small memory drive I had found in that first console. Tails grabbed at it.

"I'll take it to them, some of them are none to happy with... well us Mobians at least."

"What happened around here?" I said, following Tails.

"Well, so far we've figured out that many different worlds got smashed together about three weeks ago. However many of those worlds were very different from each other in terms of population size and species. I can't say when exactly we started having problems, but it definitely started a week after Metudo barred people from leaving on their own. The people that could go out on scouting missions seem to still be handling things well enough, but the regular citizenry has become very divided. The humans, the demons, the Mobians, and the Shinigami have become the main groups. Most of the hate mongering comes from the humans, but it has begun to affect everyone."

"So I take it that one girl, Ukyo, is a fighter?"

"Yes, she's not one of our top, but she is pretty formidable with that spatula. I heard she managed to knock Zoro out once. Though people are calling that a lucky hit." Rather than question him further I let him ramble for a while.

"And here we are, center of technology." The outside of the room was unnoticeable, much like everywhere else in this place, but just inside was a maze of lights and machinery.

"Ah Tails, back already? I thought you were going out with the next scouting group for some more copper wires." A young man was working at a bench in the back, he never looked up.

"Yeah, but a new friend popped up, and he's been out spying on the enemy."

"Oh, new information?"

"Yep, he even got it on a flash drive." Now the young man turned, lifting his goggles to get a better look.

"Here, let me see." He took the drive and pulled back the sleeve of his coat. I saw cold steel where his arm should be, but he just inserted the drive without a second thought. "Interesting."

"What?"

"Well this confirms my theory that someone is actually reconstructing this planet to their own design. But more interesting is the false sky above us. I had been wondering why despite the planet becoming larger we still had regular twenty-four hour days. In fact more regular than normal. Huh, also some form of climate control."

"He also saw Eggman working with the enemy."

"Not surprising, after the merging, many demons in particular joined the other side. Probably not helping our own demonic allies with their prejudice thing." Tails sighed.

"You know that's a really big problem. Everyone's fighting each other, and we've got really big issues on our hands."

"It's just the civilians fighting each other. It'll calm down once they can spread out and claim their own turf." Tails just shook his head and motioned to me.

"Come on, I'll take you to the Mobian quarters. We can get you a room."

We traveled a good distance before we came into a wide cavern. The ground had been shaped to make room for houses, so it almost looked like a village shanty; complete with the word Mobian's scratched out of the rock and under it Furries.

"Don't... don't mind the markings. Odin is coming down tonight to fix that." Tails said, blushing a little before heading down a slight hill. As we reached the center of the village a commotion had been stirred up.

"Shadow, we should've guessed you'd be okay." I heard someone say nearby. I spotted Knuckles resting on a slightly elevated hill.

"Is the Master Emerald alright?" I asked, recalling the ruin of Floating Island.

"Yeah, I got it installed as a new generator. Normally I don't like to do that, but we're in a tough place, and the Emerald asked to let it help." I remembered something else.

"Tails, I have these for you." I said, holding out the two gems I had been carrying around.

"That's one of the Chaos Emeralds right!" Tails said grabbing the normal Emerald. "We set up the Master Emerald chamber much like the ruins, so there are places to put these, we could generate enough power to maybe even finish some sort of cannon!"

"This one's also a Chaos Emerald." I said, holding out the larger one.

"What!" Knuckles hopped down next to me to get a better look. "It's not giving off the same energy as the other Chaos Emeralds."

"I know. I retrieved this from Eggman. He had this weird orange ball thing and the two collided with each other."

"You mean a Dragon Ball?" I looked to the source of the voice and saw Princess Sally approaching. "It was bright orange, fits in the palm of your hand and had rust colored stars in the center?"

"Yeah." She leaned over, looking at the crystal. "Three Stars." She muttered than lifted it from my hand. A second later her fur was standing on end and trying to change hues; I quickly took it back.

"What was that?" Tails asked, closing in now.

"It's one of the interesting things about this crystal, it's got far more energy than a regular Emerald, and its more accessible. Unlike normal Chaos Emeralds, this will allow anyone to tap into the energy. In fact with this one alone I'm able to enter my Super form." Tails carefully picked it up. I could see his fur shifting from the power burst.

"I'm going to get these down to Tech's lab, I think we have the Dragon Ball we found down there." He said, rushing off.

"I'll get you signed on as present, you'll probably be able to go out on the next scout group." Sally said, turning and heading into an actual hut. Knuckles clasped my shoulder.

"Good to see you again. It'll be nice having someone that isn't as loud as blue boy."

Sally wasted no time in putting me into rotation. I was grateful for that, it was hard to be cramped with almost nothing to do. I had tried to work in the labs, but I soon found out that one woman, Bulma, worked down there and moonlighted to the med bay when they were short on staff. She seemed to be okay with Tails and Rotor working down there, but apparently didn't trust me.

Then again I found out the man I saved was a bit of a prick as well. He didn't even wait to fully recover before taking over a training chamber, and literally beating anyone stupid enough to challenge him. Even wounded there were only very few who managed to fight evenly with him. Apparently someone named Goku could beat him on a regular basis, but no one had seen him for over a week.

Which was interesting when he showed up during one of my scouting missions.

We were supposed to be gathering supplies, food, clothing, metals, all the while looking out for any remaining survivors; despite the fact that Metudo had pretty much confirmed that ninety-eight percent of the remaining population was now inside the base.

Regardless things were moving smoothly when I felt a ripple run through the earth.

"D-Does anyone else feel that?" One of my companions, Krillen, said cautiously. The other two, a girl named Orihime who could heal, and a bulky man named Choji looked around carefully. Some of the people in the base could sense creatures with high energy readings. Which sounds more helpful than it is. Solarus have so little energy they can't really be tracked. However now Krillen was looking around frantically; even I could feel something, like an invisible pressure hanging over my head.

I looked to Orihime.

"Had me the Chaos Crystal." I held out my hand, after the initial studies, it was decided the scouting group would take what had been dubbed the Chaos Crystal with them on their missions. It had already saved a few groups, now it was going to save ours.

As she held it out, it vanished. I heard it chink against the ground a few feet away. At the same time a familiar figure loomed into view. The creature I had seen at the base, the one that had chased me.

"Lucky day." It said, standing between me and Orihime. "I had hoped I would get a chance to finish off the one that got away." It looked over at the fallen Crystal. "And this time you won't have your magic toy." Pain shot through my skull as my feet left the ground. I hadn't even seen it move.

I hit the ground rolling, and turned that into an advantage. Rather than slow down I balled up to increase my speed. While I made a wide loop I tried to pin point my target, but I couldn't feel its presence; until my arm felt like it shattered.

My spin stopped and I could see I had been punted into the air, where I had just been the creature stood, watching my arc. Gravity finally took control, and I felt my spine shudder against something, before being dropped to the ground. I felt blood in my mouth, but ignored it as I pushed against the ground, my body screaming. A sudden pressure on my back forced me back into the dirt.

"Not as fun as I had hoped. I guess you're really nothing without your toys." I could feel the cold steel grinding into me. The last thing I remembered was the pressure leaving my back and a tall man standing against this creature.


	4. Chapter 4

I woke up on a hospital bed, the man I had seen earlier was on the cot next to me.

"Don't move." I heard one of the nurses say. "You haven't recovered completely." I laid back down.

"How long have I been out?"

"A little over twelve hours." That quickly? I knew I healed quickly, but that was a little insane. The nurse must have noticed my surprised look.

"It's Orihime, she's got amazing healing capabilities. She is the best healer we have, he also was treated by her. We had to sedate him though while we set up some new locks on the kitchen." I sat up again, I ached a little, but nothing a little running wouldn't fix.

"Don't forget to report in, they want to know when you're ready to go out again!" I heard the nurse yell after me.

I found a quiet place to sit and think in the Mobian district. There were children playing in the street below. It was an odd feeling, the world outside was in such turmoil, and even under constant threat, here the people still acted like there was peace. They even had started fighting amongst each other.

I guess that was our doing. We allowed everyone here to live peacefully, and the worst of it was we enjoyed doing it. I felt alive when I fought, I guess it was what I was built to do, but the others; they were like me, just born rather than made.

I pulled myself out of my head and went to Sally to let her know I was up again.

"Hey Shadow!" I heard Sonic coming up behind me. "Yer up!"

"Yes."

"I didn't think anything could give you that kind of smack down." He was in front of me now.

"I wasn't in Super form, it managed to keep me from doing so." He seemed to think for a moment.

"Still, so you know, they're starting to send out parties after the crystals. They're only sending the best though, the last team just got back."

"Interesting."

"Yeah, it was a success, but some of them didn't make it." I raised my eyes a little, it had been tough so far, but I hadn't heard of casualties yet. He looked away and then back. "Be careful out there, the next team is doubling up in size. You're running with me."

"What?"

"We've got two crystals now, we'll each have one." I didn't exactly like the idea of working with him, but if there were casualties among the strongest... My mind wandered to the thing that had attacked me. The man in the hospital, Goku. He was measurably the strongest fighter here. He won, but wound up in the hospital.

"Alright, but we're going to activate them as soon as we get out of the gates." I said, heading for the tunnels.

After a bit of a talk with Koenma I managed to get them to send Sonic and myself alone. They mainly only agreed on the fact that we could warp with the Crystals, and a larger group would begin to be unruly. The idea being we would warp in and warp out without a problem.

Seconds later we were staring over a city, our combined energy radiating out. I felt rather than saw demons scattering away from us. In our Super forms, we floated down to the crumbling streets. The sun had set on this area a while ago; the world seemed quiet, still, dead.

"Shadow." Sonic was standing down the road a bit, pointing. Looking down the street I thought I saw a golden tan ear flickering in the light we generated. Sonic was already moving, by the time I got there he was holding her body silently.

She had been shot and left. Judging from the wounds it had happened weeks ago. Looking at her I felt anger coursing through my body. Sonic hadn't moved, I placed a hand tentatively on his shoulder.

"Cream... She's..."

"I know, we'll stop this. For her too." I said, controlling myself fairly well.

"Must be nice..." Sonic said, slowly getting up and dusting himself off. "Not feeling anything." He was giving me a cold look.

"Now is not the time." His piercing stare didn't wane but he lowered his fist.

"Fine. Let's find this thing and get out of here." I nodded, staring out into the darkness. While he had been talking we had been surrounded, I could hear the low thud of Solarus footsteps in the darkness.

"Blast!" I fired a small burst of energy, the light flew into the horde of Solarus and exploded. There must have been thousands of them. Sonic seemed to have noticed too.

"Well, this is going to be fun."

"Break to the south." I said, he nodded. I balled up as bullets began cutting into our energy shields. The two of us launched into the crowd, scattering and demolishing them until we were clear. Then we began running, circling the area as we went.

"When one of us finds the ball, fly up!" Sonic yelled at me, breaking off. I sped forward, driving myself back into the horde.

Just stopping scattered several of them, I fired off a series of shots, clearing a small area around a broken building. With opportunity present, I entered and began searching. Every few seconds I'd collapse a piece of the roof, or blast a hole in the floor, or destroy a Solarus that got too close.

Desks, closets, rubble, I searched everywhere I could think, before busting through the wall into the next building. By the time I had hunted through five buildings, the stray bullets had eaten away at my energy I was no longer blasting with it, using what was left to maintain a shield. My golden hue was beginning to fade, a few bullets had cut through my shield and I was already sporting a few freely bleeding wounds where I had been grazed or clipped.

Finally in a pile of rubble near the center of town I found the orange orb and reached for it. As I did my arm flew away, I felt the bone break as a bullet passed clean through. Looking up the Solarus were nearly on top of me. Quickly I grabbed the orb, and drew the last of my energy before launching myself into the air.

Sonic jumped out soon afterward and we used what was left between us to warp.

I woke up coughing. We had warped, but where was a hard question. I shook Sonic awake.

"Where are we?" He asked looking around at the icy landscape.

"Feels like ice floats, meaning we popped ourselves out into the middle of the most frigid part of the ocean." I said. This wasn't good, both of us would need to recover strength before we could warp again, and the best we could hope to do in this wasteland was break even; and that would be with food. The two crystals we had were drained, and if prior knowledge served, would take a day or two to recover.

I deftly ate the last of the bread I had grabbed in case of emergency; trying to think about how to get off this rock when Sonic started wandering away.

"What are you doing?"

"Gonna go exploring."

"Idiot, our best chance is to sit still and recover our strength to the point we can warp."

"Yeah but I'm bored."

"Suffer a little then!"

"Like you would know the meaning!" I realized I was seconds away from decking him, wasting precious energy.

"Fine. Go. I'll tell them there was another casualty." I said, sitting back down. I tried to calm myself, but he sat next to me.

"Did you really not feel anything? Seeing her?"

"I watched my closest friend die before my eyes... twice. What do you think?" I was annoyed, and was probably hiding in my childhood tragedy, but I was also cold, and didn't want to think too hard.

"You know what I think? I think you do care. You just like to act tough."

"And what about you? Always running away once the threat is over."

"Eh, just like being free. People start relying on you too much and you loose the ability to be free." I sighed, now I was getting bored.

"Alright, we'll do one lap around the ice floats, we might find something useful." I said, getting up and dusting off the snow.

"Now we're talking. I'll go this way, you go that and we'll meet at the other side."

I had to admit it felt nice, feeling the wind whipping through my spines. Even if it was frigid, my body was warming itself up with the activity. So I picked up my pace, feeling the ice crumbling from the heat my feet generated as I neared my top speed, until something physically snapped my body prone.

The orb in my pouch had locked onto something, I desperately pulled it out, to keep it from ripping its way out. My hands could barely hold it as it strained against my grip.

It flew a good few feet before crashing into the ice. For a moment nothing happened, then a pulsing green light filled my vision. Floating in the new crater was the green Chaos Crystal, 4 rusted stars sitting in the center.

"Sonic!" I called out, I knew he was close.

"Hey! I thought we were going to meet half..." He stopped as he saw the Crystal. "You found the matching Emerald!"

"Yep! Let's get home!" I said, holding the Crystal out to him.

When we got back the entire base was under alert. Apparently a new group had arrived and they were causing a bit of a ruckus. They wanted to attack, Metudo wanted to stay the defensive. Sonic and I were exhausted, we chose to sit back and watch the chaos.

Surprisingly it was the non-fighters that rose against these newcomers. Odin stepped in, as did Anatos and Metudo, but the other fighters decided to stand back and watch. I was sure we all wanted the same thing, to go and finish this. If these people had a way to win, then I was behind them.

It concluded as I had hoped, their leader, a young girl named Neko had won out in a fight against Metudo. Historically, this meant the passing of the torch. There was also some business about one of the others having a big secret that got out. I didn't care.

What I did care about was the changes over the next few days. The people were being armed, all of the fighters were being fitted for armor and weapons if desired. One of the newcomers, Thorium, had control over metals; and he was generating more than enough to fuel a war machine.

The plan was somewhat simple, we were going to launch an attack in six directions. The majority of us were going to attack from the ground, Tech was busy building up a fleet to air drop us close enough to strike.

I was asked to join at the West group. Four people were given the Crystals; Goku, Sonic, Luffy, and Ichigo. They were each put in a different group. I was running alongside Sonic, much to my dismay.

We were going to be leading the Mobian army, so I guess it made some form of sense. Everyone was armed, so long as they could fight. Only a tenth were remaining behind to defend the young and the old.

I chose to forgo armor or weapons of any kind, they would just hinder my movement. My goal was simple enough. Get to the tower, and retrieve the Crystals. Eggman had managed to gather three while we were hunting, and I could not allow whatever that black stone was to wake up.


End file.
